Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent Synopsis

Maleficent explores the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the classic “Sleeping Beauty" and the elements of her betrayal that ultimately turn her pure heart to stone. Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king’s newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever.

As the most-used website on the internet, Google has a ton of access to information about our society, and by analyzing their numbers can come up with lists of the biggest trends during a certain amount of time. Today they have revealed the top 10 searches when it comes to movies in 2014 – and the results they came up with are pretty surprising.

While critics do like to lambast these recent live-action versions of classic animated movies, and Alice in Wonderland -- to name two – have broken the bank, proving that audiences do respond kindly to this type of storytelling.

Now that we’ve officially passed the Halloween hump and put a slew of seasonal horror releases behind us, the studios have plenty of Christmas titles they are already pumping and dumping this year. But don’t worry. There are some big releases, too, starting with Disney’s blockbuster, Maleficent.

If you're a regular Amazon user, you may have noticed that you can't seem to find Captain America 2 on the site for pre-order. Searching the online superstore for the Marvel Studios film reveals links to purchase the movie digitally and to the first movie in the solo franchise, Captain America: The First Avenger, but no sign of any editions Captain America: The Winter Soldier on any physical format.

Some studios are trying to make great movies, trying to make profit, trying to make hits. But right now, Disney is acting completely gangsta. They've got their Disney animated fare, and completely unrelated Pixar movies. They've got Marvel completely crushing things, and they've got a savagely bombastic live-action branch of films for families.

It's proving another banner year for female-fronted films, thanks to hits like Frozen, The Fault In Our Stars and Maleficent. Notably two of these three features came from Disney, and now they are facing off in Japan.

In a summer of heroes, leave it to a villain like Maleficent to have the only non spandex clad success at the multiplex. As it crossed the $600 million mark this week, we have to wonder - how did this happen?

Concept artist Steffen Reichstadt -- whose credits include Noah, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow and the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes -- shared images of possible Maleficents on his official page. Some are EXTREMELY different from the finished design.

Including a possible rape metaphor in a Disney movie is one thing. People could have interpreted the scene that way. But having Angelina Jolie come out and admit on the record that it was the intent of the film changes the game.

Could Maleficent 2 be in the cards? From what Angelina Jolie said recently, it sounds like it might be. The star of the live-action Disney film didn't state outright that there would be a followup to Maleficent in some form or another, but she sound interested in the possibility of getting to play Maleficent again.

This morning's Monday Movie Memo talks about Maleficent from the perspective of a parent. Just because the movie has the Disney label on it doesn't mean that it's suitable for all ages. And yes, every child is different, but I wanted to discuss a few elements of the film that might raise red flags with moms and dads planning a night out at the theater.

Maleficent may have taken one of Disney's most wicked and terrifying villains and turned her into a limp shadow of her former self, but the film's sparkling marketing and Angelina Jolie's ability to look beautifully creepy in horns and cheek-bone defining facial appliances led the movie to a $70 million number one this weekend.

Disney's Maleficent offers a live-action re-imagining of the story of Sleeping Beauty, giving a new perspective on the tale's big bad fairy. Angelina Jolie plays Maleficent in the flesh and in a way we'd never seen this horned villainess before: with wings. And we've got an inside line on how director Robert Stromberg made them look like an enviable weapon.

Considering seven separate categories, To 3D Or Not To 3D evaluates the full scope of the 3D viewing experience. Think of it as a consumer's guide for your movie-going, complete with a viewers poll where you can weigh in on how you plan to see Maleficent.

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What kind of person crashes a Christening? If you're familiar with Disney's Sleeping Beauty, then you know the answer to that already: Maleficent. The animated film has the mega-villain dropping in on baby Aurora's big day, and it looks like Disney's upcoming live action feature, Maleficent, will include a very similar scene.

Disney has released a series of new character posters for their upcoming villain story Maleficent. Among them is this great look at Sam Riley's character Diaval. Those familiar with Disney's Sleeping Beauty may remember Maleficent's right-hand raven. In lieu of responsive and resourceful animal pals...

Which is why we've decided to break down most of the summer's offerings, observing exactly what it is about some films that cause them to succeed and fail. This involved number crunching, market analysis, educated guesses, and the application of a few snobby biases.

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Rather than delivering a live-action remake of Sleeping Beauty, Disney has taken more of a Wicked approach with Maleficent in focusing its attention on the villain of the story. As screenwriter Linda Woolverton describes the concept in the new featurette, Maleficent is "a reinvention, not a retelling of the same story."

You can spot Fanning off the right, wandering out of some dangerous looking brambles and giving some timid side-eye to Maleficent's right hand crow. But to the left, Disney is teasing a wild array of critters.

Maleficent marks the directorial debut of Robert Stromberg, whose long list of credits exist in the Visual Effects departments of such blockbuster titles as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Chronicles of Riddick, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Life of Pi, to name just a few.

Following up on yesterday's teaser, which revealed Maleficent's impressive wings comes a new full trailer for the Disney film, which centers on Sleeping Beauty villain Maleficent. The newest glimpse of the movie gives us an eyeful of Maleficent in flight, fairies, fire-breathing dragons and other strange creatures, some of whom may "live in the shadows" and are responding to Maleficent's rallying cry to join her in the fight.

The next Maleficent trailer is coming in one day, and to keep our appetites primed for its arrival, Disney has released a teaser trailer and a new banner, both of which show off another aspect of Angelina Jolie's character. We've seen the claws and the horns. Now there's a giant set of wings to go with them.

The horns. The collar. The eyes. The claws! Everything about the new poster for Disney's Maleficent screams danger. And at the top, almost unnecessarily, is the reminder that we're looking at Angelina Jolie. Even with the impressive costume and make-up, sharpening those high cheekbones, there's no mistaking that face.

Del Rey’s soulful, whiskey-soaked crooning gives the Maleficent footage a totally unexpected tone, laying a base of sorrow under CGI imagery that still reminds me of Snow White and the Huntsman or Jack the Giant Slayer.

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Maleficent is a retelling of the classic Brothers Grimm story from a new perspective. Set in an ancient kingdom, the story follows the eponymous witch, played by Angelina Jolie, as she makes her decent into villainy and curses the beautiful Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) to eternal slumber.

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That was the pitch that got the movie green lit, that's the promise that's draw interest in even early concept art, and that's really the only tagline needed for this first teaser trailer for Maleficent, the latest effort from Disney to put a modern, creepy spin on their vault of classic fairy tales

For more than a year, pretty much all we’ve had to go on in terms of visuals for Disney’s villain story Maleficent is the stunning and sinister looking profile of Angelina Jolie as the title character, offering just a hint of her colorful eyes and the strange horned headpiece that reminds me a little of the Lord of Darkness from Legend.

Elaborating on the work that is to be done, Roth explained that the "last 75 minutes are really entertaining" and that the movie as a whole is "gorgeous to look at" (not to surprising given Stromberg's history as a production designer), but that issues remain in the opening of the story. The production will be taking an extra eight days on set in London.

Walt Disney Studios has many exciting and anticipated titles in the pipeline for us, and have promised that we will be getting an exclusive sneak peek at Saving Mr. Banks, Thor: The Dark World, Muppets Most Wanted, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Maleficent and Tomorrowland.

Disney has a ton of movies coming up that you're excited about, from further adventures for the Avengers to a Muppets sequel, and now we finally have a better sense of exactly when we can expect them. The studio announced release dates for a whole slew of their upcoming projects

Fans of celebrity gossip will probably want to have their eyes peeled for the appearances of the Jolie-Pitt kids when Maleficent opens in theaters March 14, 2014-- but the rest of us may not even manage to notice they're there. With the Smith kids busy taking over the world with music and film careers, perhaps it's a good thing that the Jolie-Pitts are still managing to keep a low profile

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's daughter VIvienne Jolie-Pitt is joining the cast of the upcoming Disney film Maleficent. The 4-year-old will make a small cameo in the film, which stars her mother as the villainous Maleficent, the character featured in the 1959 classic film Sleeping Beauty.

Great origin stories aren't limited to heroes. To name a couple of examples, if there's one thing Wicked and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog demonstrated well (besides really great music), it's that villains can have interesting beginnings too, and stories well worth showcasing. Disney has plans to do just that for Maleficent, the villainous sorceress in the classic 1959 animated tale Sleeping Beauty.

Brenton Thwaites, a relative newcomer from Australia who has a few television series to his credit. Needless to say, this is a major break for Thwaites, who’ll star alongside Jolie in a story centered around the evil queen from the classic Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

We learned that Imelda Staunton and Lesley Manville had signed on to play the pixies who care for Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) in a cottage in the woods, but if you've seen the classic Disney Sleeping Beauty, you know there are three fairies involved. Enter Juno Temple

That's a whole lot of talent for one movie, and Maleficent could probably use it-- the director is Robert Stromberg, who had worked as a production designer on films like Alice in Wonderland and Avatar before making his directorial debut here

Copley will play King Stefan, presumably the father of Princess Aurora, the young woman cursed by Maleficent and put into a long, deep sleep. The funny thing is we still don't really know who will play Aurora-- there had been a rumor a while back that Elle Fanning may take the role